


Aphasia

by katofrafters



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Aphasia, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 02:23:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1451974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katofrafters/pseuds/katofrafters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor rattles his brain a bit on some planet somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aphasia

**Author's Note:**

> It felt wrong to have an account with no fics posted to it. 
> 
> This drabble was originally posted to an old LJ community looking for aphasia prompts. I'm entirely too intrigued by linguistics (and language disorders and translation matrices, etc) and couldn't resist giving it a go. That said, this is a pretty old prompt that's never been beta-ed. Apologies for any inconsistencies in things like tone, voice, tense, or grammar. 
> 
> The first few lines are from the prompt. 
> 
> These angular bracket things are used around dialogue in a language that is not English. (Thank you Megatokyo.)

He senses something, call it desperation. Her words are swimming through his ears again, but he can’t focus, can’t make his mind grasp the language that she’s screaming in his direction. It’s something in English, he’s reasonably sure, but he can’t seem to parse the words.

Her eyes are close, face twisted in worry. Cool hands rub against his temple, soothing, but urgent.

_Focus_ he urges himself, reaching for the words he needs. They seem so far away – too far.

“Doctor?”

He knows that word – it’s his name. Yes, that’s a step in the right direction.

“Canyouhearme?”

He knows it’s a question, knows that it should make simple sense to him. But it doesn’t. He frowns, frustrated, and struggles to sit up.

She pushes at him, pinning his weakened form against the metal mesh of the TARDIS floor. He’s surprisingly feeble against her grasp, body sagging against the grated metal below him. The TARDIS hums worriedly in his mind as her eyes stare down, clearly confused.

<I’m fine> he hears himself say, though he’s not sure if the words quite make it through the haze between brain and mouth.

Her brow furrows and she starts off at him, her voice taking on that scolding edge that tells him he’s screwed up. But how?

<Donna, what’s going on?> he tries to ask, mouth tripping over the words. She jumps at the sound of her name, but the anger on her face turns to confusion. A string of words spills form her mouth and he struggles to catch some of their meaning. He picks up ‘man’ and ‘who,’ ‘TARDIS’ and, finally, ‘help.’ She’s tearing up, he can see the shine in her eyes, and it pulls at his hearts’ strings. He’s scaring her.

<It’s okay, Donna, I’m okay,> he tries to assure her, but with each word her eyes just keep getting wider and wider.

Another long string of babble and he hears ‘English’ and nothing more.

Frowning, he tries to get up once more. For a moment Donna looks as though she might stop him, but she relents and helps him sway unsteadily to his feet.

<If I can get to the medical bay then the TARDIS can figure out what’s wrong> he explains, struggling to keep both his feet and his breath. He’s weighing heavily on her shoulders and by the time they make it out into the hallway and across into the medical bay, it’s all either of them to do to shuffle forward.

He lands roughly against the scanner panel, fingers clumsy as they skid across the keys. Symbols skitter across the controls like nervous mites and yeah, that's not normal. Things slowly fade into understandability, and he finds the buttons for a diagnostic of his system.

Donna helps him onto the flat table, nervously hovering as the machine starts humming and flashing lights. He can hear her rambling, the pitch of her voice so very nervous, but he still only makes out one word in twelve.

The TARDIS feels even more on edge as the readings appear, printed softly out onto a portable screen. Donna jumps as the machine spits the little tablet of results out at her. She takes it in hand, gazing at it, making a face, then bringing it over to the Doctor.

He reads it, or tries to; the words are all gibberish, but the diagrams are understandable enough. He’s taken an incredible blow to the skull, rattling his brain around enough to damage the speech center. He could be talking complete rubbish in five different languages at once and he’d have no idea. And without him to focus through, the TARDIS won’t be capable of translating his rambling speech to Donna.

She’s leaning over his shoulder, badgering him lightly for an answer. He knows better than to try and show her the results. What he needs is a good rest, time for his body to repair the damage. But this is Donna, and brave and awe-inspiring as she may be, xenobiology is not her specialty. The kind of trance he needs could scare the poor woman half to death without some sort of warning.

He wills the TARDIS to send her a message, but his head aches with the effort. Nothing happens for a long moment and he starts to wonder how deep this damage goes. Can she even understand what he's asking?

The machine around him whirs to life and he jumps, looking up. This isn't the plan. This isn't a message. There's nothing left to scan, no reason for these lights to be shining, for the bed to be humming beneath his fingers.

He knows he’s wounded when the answer finally comes to him – his TARDIS is giving him an out. It might not be much more than a light show to him, but to Donna it's a reason for his stillness. He lays back down, shoots her an encouraging smile, and closes his eyes.

 

When he wakes, his head throbs and his hands shake, but he feels stronger regardless. Donna runs over as he rises, mouth already running.

“Are you okay?” An uncharacteristically short utterance that the Doctor can’t help but be grateful for.

<More or less,> he replies and he’s sure this time his words make sense. But her face says she doesn’t agree.

“Can you speak English? Please, Doctor, I can’t understand you when you go all space boy on me.”

The Doctor frowns, rubbing fingers along his temples. His whole head is throbbing.

“This English?” he finally manages to ask, his words heavily accented and strange in his mouth.

“Yes!” Donna says after a moment of puzzling. “That’s English!” Then her face draws inward and she asks, slowly, “Can you understand me?”

The Doctor nods, wincing at the movement. <I just can’t…> “Just… talking hard…” he manages to sputter.

“Was it the head wound?” she asks, looking back behind his head. “Because that’s nearly better now. Maybe just a bit more rest, will…”

<I need something to eat,> he urges, discouraged by the words he now recognizes as Gallifreyan spilling from his tongue. “Food,” he manages.

“Right! I’ll get something from the kitchen,” she promises. “You. Don’t move.”

He nods, laying back down onto the slab. It’s warm, humming with the energy of the TARDIS. She’s worried, her presence pressing reassuringly against his mind. <I’ll be okay,> he promises, still weirded out at the sound of words he hasn't heard in some hundreds of years. He can't remember the last time he spoke them aloud.

The door bangs open again and Donna rushes in with a kettle in one hand and a basket in the other. Plugging everything into the wall, she approaches with a freshly toasted bagel in hand. It's only slightly charred. He reaches for it, nearly dropping it for the tremble in his fingers.

“Your hands,” she says, eyes nervous as they flicker to his.

He shoots what he hopes is a reassuring smile as he bites into the bagel.

“Are you going to be alright?” she asks. “Cause this whole alien languages thing is ridiculous.”

The nod sends pain throbbing through his skull and he pauses, heel of his free hand cradling his forehead.

“Sorry!”

A dismissive hand wave later and the Doctor is back at his bagel, swallowing it nearly whole.

“There’ll be tea in a few minutes,” Donna rambles, “and I’ve got more food in the basket. I didn’t know what you’d want so I grabbed everything I could think of.” She brings the basket to him, showing off a wide variety of bread products, some fruit, spreads of all sorts, and a small block of cheese.

Snagging an apple, he smiles his thanks and starts in.

Donna sets the basket down by his makeshift bed and meanders away to hover anxiously over the kettle. She prepares a mug, tosses in a teabag and stares at the kettle like its personally offended her by taking this long. At the first hint of sound she hauls it off the base and fills the mug, swirling the teabag around with an impatient hand. She knows better than to offer milk and sugar, running it over to the bed as soon as its steeped.

“What’d you do with the core?” Donna asks, handing the mug over. “You didn’t eat it, did you?”

The Doctor grins, already sipping his tea without apparent fear of the heat.

“You are insane.” She reaches out and slaps him on the arm, the kind of affection that only Donna seems able to properly pull off. It's only after she follows through that she turns to him, wide eyed with fear. “I’m sorry! I didn’t hurt you did I?”

The Doctor shakes his head.

“God I wish you could talk to me. It’s so bloody quiet without you yattering on all the time.”

<I’ll be fine,> he responds before he can stop himself, sighing as she flinches.

“Wait, isn’t the TARDIS supposed to be translating for me?”

Before she can follow that train of thought, the Doctor gulps down the last of his tea, and hands the mug to her expectantly.

“I’m not your maid,” she tells him flatly before she goes to fill it up again. “You remember that. And you didn’t answer my question.”

Kneading the sides of his aching skull, he searchs for the English to explain. It's simple really – the TARDIS channels all translations through the Doctor so if you screw up the Doctor’s translation matrix, it translates to the ship as well. But how the hell do you explain that to a very not-tech-savy human without any proper command of English? He can barely ask for a cup of tea.

“Explain it to me when you wake up,” Donna orders suddenly, pushing another cup of tea into his hands. “It’ll save time.”

He grins – Donna Noble, unconscious psychic – and gulps down the next dose of his favorite brain stimulating liquid.

“And get some sleep,” she orders, taking the empty mug. “I’ll be around if you need anything. I’m sure you can still get my attention.”

He nods, laying back down and listening to the clink of things being put in her basket. He's nearly asleep when a warm blanket settles over him, brushing off any thought of a chill.

He smiles, sinking happily off to sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ** I am no expert in xenobiology or language disorders. I have, however, read some really fascinating stuff about bilinguals suffering from aphasia who lost either their native or secondary language completely after the injury. Something about that idea seemed too good to resist with the master polyglot.


End file.
